


Mutterings

by PoorWendy



Series: Inceptiversary 2016 - Trope Bingo [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Inception Bingo, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorWendy/pseuds/PoorWendy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She becomes restless with the understanding that she's hearing things other people aren't hearing. The contents of her mind are as explosive and erratic as the city block in Paris when her first dream collapsed.</p><p>She's gone from Ariadne the noticer, to Ariadne the honest-to-goodness <em>mind-reader</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutterings

**Author's Note:**

> For my Telepathy square, for Inception Bingo.

The newly assembled full team is meeting in the warehouse. Cobb is attempting to drill into them the true gravity of their upcoming job. And Ariadne is not arguing that inception is serious stuff, but even so, she finds Cobb's severity a little laughable. He reminds her of her high school guidance counselor, back when he'd warned her about filling up her schedule with too many AP courses in senior year.

She's doodling a clocktower in the margin of her notepad, her attention totally wavering. Then, suddenly, Arthur catches it, rather than Cobb.

"Ugh, you _prick_ ," Arthur nearly bemoans.

And it catches her attention because, regardless of what Arthur's _eyes_ say about Cobb a lot of the time, he never vocalizes his frustration like this.

And what's even more curious is that nobody else seems to bat an eye. So Ariadne just writes it off as a strange little tendency of Arthur's that everybody else must be used to by now. Then again, maybe he's acting differently because Cobb's back from Mombasa with Yusuf and Eames.

And neither Yusuf nor Eames is what she expected. It would seem that Arthur is more the polar end of a spectrum than a representation of professionalism among Dreamsharers. Although, Eames may be the other end of the spectrum; of like, every spectrum.

And Yusuf... Well, Yusuf she likes. Even if she hasn't quite gotten to know him yet. But he's pleasant to be around, certainly, and in another setting, she might even acknowledge how adorable she thinks he is.

And Yusuf seems to know Eames, and Eames seems to know Arthur. And Cobb knows Arthur, and Ariadne _thought_ she knew Arthur, or was at least _getting to know_ Arthur, but now she's second-guessing herself.

Because, really, he just flat-out _whined_ in the middle of this meeting and nobody seemed to notice or care. And so, she simply resigns herself to being back at square one; not knowing anybody here, or anything about this business, and apparently without even her natural instinct of noticing things to keep her afloat.

\---

For another day or so she abides Arthur's sporadic, childish comments from around the warehouse, doing her best to ignore them like everybody else. It grows increasingly difficult. Eventually, she has to abandon the effort when Cobb wanders off, looking like a junkie needing a fix, but very clearly going to give his top a spin and try and get a grip on reality, Arthur not-at-all-quietly sighs, "Our _fucking_ leader."

She looks around to confirm that, yet again, nobody's going to say a damn word about it. Arthur looks up from his desk and she gives him a perplexed and sort of unimpressed stare, hoping to convey the notion that his little outburst is less than she thought to expect from him. He returns the stare confusedly, and defensively, and certainly more coldly than she'd have expected. She bites down on her tongue to stop herself spitting out, "Why even _say_ shit like that if you can't handle people reacting to it?"

Before turning back to her work, she catches Yusuf's eye. He looks vaguely suspicious for only a moment before turning back to his droppers and beakers and all the other science crap she doesn't actually know the name for.

\---

After a few days, she starts to wonder whether it's just Arthur who's acting strangely. Because she swears she hears Saito muttering to himself in Japanese, but every time she looks his way, he's sitting quietly, with that _I-could-and-have-bought-everyone-in-this-room_ kind of look on his face.

And she swears she hears Eames say to Arthur, "Well _done_ ," as he walks past the point man's desk and casts an eye over all the papers and plans laid out before him. But Arthur doesn't even _react_ , and Eames says it without even a hint of irony, and none of it seems very likely at all.

And she _knows_ she hears Yusuf at his computer, when he's supposedly working on... she doesn't know, but chemistry, probably, saying, "HA. Now that is a quality cat photo. Have an upvote."

Ariadne doesn't think twice before giggling and asking, "Are you on fucking Reddit right now?"

She expects Yusuf to play at being caught and laugh along with her, but instead, his head darts up, his eyes are _wide_ , and she hears the telltale click-click of Ctrl+W before Yusuf starts humming mindlessly, and turns his worried-looking eyes back to his computer.

\---

For all that Arthur and Eames are at each other's throats when everybody's working as a group, when things are quieter around the warehouse and they divide up to tackle individual tasks and assignments, they become damn near _considerate_ of each other. It becomes easier and easier for Ariadne to understand the flippant way Arthur traditionally speaks to and about Eames whenever she catches a soft _"Wow,"_ or a muted-but-impressed _"Impeccable,"_ when he must think nobody's listening.

She'd really love to pay closer attention to their weird dynamic, but once she does there's always something to distract her, and it's never anything so simple as designing three dream levels. It's all these other so-called professionals grunting and groaning about this-and-that all day long. She may actually be learning Japanese at this point. Well, maybe not, but she at least knows that "manuke" is something not-so-nice, and Arthur apparently is one.

Or then, there will be Yusuf, who'll mutter a few quiet words here and there, like the beginning of a sentence, and then abruptly, as if suddenly realizing he's speaking, he stops in favor of singing, or humming (or, on one occasion, just cataloguing the features of the cats that hang around his lab in Mombasa).

\---

It takes days to recognize the tune Yusuf's been humming incessantly: Falco's _Rock Me Amadeus_. Ariadne smiles about that to herself, but doesn't ask him about it, because now she really never asks anybody about anything but work— _certainly_ not about any off-hand comments anybody makes because they all seem to have an established policy of ignoring all the things everybody mutters all day. And everybody's muttering more and more every day. Saito, always in Japanese, and maybe it makes sense that they aren't commenting on it since he's more-or-less running the show, he's richer than rich, and she's pretty sure nobody else here speaks Japanese.

Arthur's mutterings become just _constant_ complaints, mostly about Cobb. He doesn't seem to complain about Eames; on the contrary, now and then she hears him concede quietly that Eames is a "charming bastard," and she doesn't know how Eames doesn't jump at this because Eames spends all day muttering to himself about Arthur's pants, and, _seriously_ does Yusuf _know_ any other songs? Or like, have the capacity to _not_ be singing _all the time?_ And, _oh god—she's going insane._

\---

She becomes restless with the understanding that she's hearing things other people aren't hearing. The contents of her mind are as explosive and erratic as the city block in Paris when her first dream collapsed. If it weren't for the reprieve of sleeping in a room of her own at night, when the quiet finally settles, she'd be a _real_ mess. Moreso than she is now. Before she falls asleep at night, though, she stresses in the silence, anxiety creeping in as she wonders what the hell is going on, why she ever got involved in any of this, why she didn't second-guess the chemicals she let pump directly into her veins, why she didn't think she wouldn't go fucking _crazy_ as a result of them; wishing she'd suddenly remember Cobb or Arthur or _anybody_ letting her know that, yes, auditory hallucinations are _totally_ a side-effect of shared dreaming, and no, no, don't worry—of _course_ it wears off with a little time.

\---

Weeks into the planning, the mutterings have only gotten worse.

She keeps herself awake almost all night, every night—crying, worrying, resigning herself to a lifetime of this, kicking herself for plugging back into the PASIV day after day, which is seriously impossible not to do, no matter how many times she resolves herself to call it quits. The thing is, not only is shared dreaming the single most fulfilling form of architecture she'll ever encounter, but it's also the only time everybody _shuts the fuck up_ for a minute and she doesn't feel insane. But all the same, every night she reprimands herself, swears off it, cries, worries, resigns, repeat.

So, when she rolls in one morning, sunglasses on, her biggest scarf wrapped practically all around her head, and France's actual largest cup of coffee trembling in her hand, she knows she must be a real sight.

Arthur actually approaches her first, but she's so put off by the _'_ _Yikes,'_ she _distinctly_ heard from him when entering the warehouse that she just buries her face in her hands, assures him she's fine, but she doesn't want to talk right now. She then _distinctly_ hears Eames mutter, _'_ _Poor thing,'_  and she's not sure whether he means Arthur or herself, but it sets her blood to boiling.

She keeps her cool for another twenty minutes.

And then, Yusuf walks in.

He's muttering something as he enters the warehouse, something about _too deep_ and something that sounds like _disk_ or _risk_ , but then, seeing Ariadne is there, he turns away and heads to his desk quickly, singing, _'_ _Er war superstar, er war populär, er war so exaltiert...'_

 _Don't freak out_ , she tells herself as he sings out with total disregard for the fact that they're all supposed to be working, and it's not even ten o'clock yet, and she's clearly nursing the madwoman's equivalent of a hangover...

 _Don't freak out_ , she tells herself again. She breathes deeply. She looks around at everybody working quietly, apparently able to ignore this complete and utter distraction.

 _Don't freak out_ , she tells herself desperately, as she looks at Yusuf, his lips decidedly shut as he clicks around at his computer and seriously, like,bellows, _'_ _Wa_ _r ein Rockidol, und alles rief: Come on and rock me, Amadeus! Amadeus, Amade-'_

"OH. MY. GOD." She's standing now. "YUSUF. WHAT THE FUCK? HOW? IT'S BEEN WEEKS! I DON'T- I CAN'T-" She realizes she's spinning out, and has no real course of action, no actual distinct message to convey, but she's still shouting anyway, even as Cobb takes hold of her shoulders and steers her toward the door, trying to say something to her, but she won't even let him get past the insufferable way he says her first name. "GERMAN," she spits out. "HE SPEAKS FUCKING GERMAN, DID YOU KNOW? GOD, IT DOESN'T STOP. I CAN'T HEAR IT AGAIN; IT'S LIKE HE'S DOING IT ON PURPOSE-"

She doesn't stop until she's outside the warehouse, suddenly leaning against the sunsoaked wall, trying to breathe. She's got a vestigial urge for a cigarette even though her habit only lasted for the first month she was in Paris.

And then she realizes her head is quiet. She turns to Cobb, leaning next to her, and gives him a curious look.

"Are you alright, Ariadne?" he asks.

She stares at him still. "I can't hear you."

"I said, are you al-"

"No, no." She waves a hand to dismiss the clarification. "I heard _that_ , I just... I can't... _hear_ you."

Cobb squints at her wonderingly, but before he has a chance to ask what she means, the door opens slowly and Yusuf comes out, his singing reduced to a low hum—not Falco anymore, just a sort of sing-song tune she suspects he's making up on the fly. "Could I have a moment with Ari?" Yusuf asks, and Cobb goes back inside, looking rather relieved to not have to deal with her himself.

"Look," she sighs guiltily at the expression on his face. "That was messed up; I really shouldn't have-"

"Ari," he interrupts, shortening her name again, and it doesn't infuriate her the way it usually does when people take that liberty without her consent. "Listen, I know you've been... hearing things."

Suddenly, she's lost a hundred pounds. "How-" she begins, then changes course hopefully. "Do you hear them too?"

"No," he answers, smiling. "But it's... I've seen it before. It's been a side effect of another one of my compounds, very similar to this one."

Ariadne feels like she's exhaling for the first time in weeks. "Side effect," she breathes. "I thought it was just the... the _dreaming_ , you know?"

His guard is suddenly down. In a moment of auditory silence, she hears him say, clear as day, and for lack of a better word, _dreamily_ , _'_ _Bloody adorable.'_

She lights up, or supposes that she must because then he's nervous, and she only hears, _'_ _Fuck_. _'_

She doesn't want to embarrass him, so she puts herself on blast a little. "I thought I was going insane," she says. "Nobody ever mentioned this could happen. How _is_ this happening, anyway?"

Yusuf shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine. Seeing it happen to you, and knowing what happened the last time I saw this... Well, I think it has as much to do with the dreamer as it does my compound, to be honest. The last person who experienced this took very quickly to Dreamshare, just like you. They were willing and enthusiastic, and very _open_."

Ariadne shrugs back. "So what does that mean?"

"Well," he starts, "best I can figure is, you're experiencing a sort of... _lingering connection_ to the minds of those you've shared dreams with under my compound and sedation."

She muses on that for a while, finally ready to address the reality she was sure _couldn't be real_ : she's gone from Ariadne the noticer, to Ariadne, the honest-to-goodness _mind-reader_. It's... bracing. And while she knows she isn't crazy, it's still a bit much for her to deal with.

Then she sees Yusuf's face, and he smiles at her comfortingly, softly, tentatively. And there's something in his smile that reminds her to breathe again, and before she can even start telling herself to calm down, she's smiling to herself.

"You know," she says, now grinning authentically for the first time in what feels like forever, "I haven't heard Cobb."

"HA!" Yusuf lets out at that. "Well," he says, "the guy has been through the ringer with Dreamshare. I think his mind might very well just work... _differently_ now." Ariadne isn't sure what he means by _now_ , or in fact, by any of this, but she writes it off to the late-night tests the two of them have been running; maybe Yusuf has doctor-like access the confidential files of Cobb's mind.

"So how did the other person deal with it? How long did it last?" she asks him.

"Once he was done with the compound, it only took about four or five days to wear off. But in the meantime, don't underestimate the power of headphones. Won't drown them out, but I expect it'll be less harsh than the silence."

Ariadne nods. She uses his iPod for the rest of the day and a few following it, but once her anxiety's receded a bit, she tries to cope without it again, and finds the invasive thoughts easier to compartmentalize, to ignore. When she's in a pinch, she takes a page from Yusuf's playbook and belts out Smash Mouth in her head.

\---

She doesn't _fully_ understand Yusuf's protectiveness of his thoughts in the preceding weeks until Cobb comes clean about everything while they're under.

Then she understands the risk, the gravity of what they're doing here, the hairsbreadth between dreaming and limbo they're straddling.

Ariadne ignores Yusuf while they're on the job. And she tries to ignore the inkling that if she _could_ hear him thinking down here, he'd win her back like that.

She wishes she could ignore Cobb. But instead she has to follow him around three separate dream levels, and she wonders why it never seemed strange to her that the only other woman she's ever heard of in this business was driven completely mad, and ultimately reduced to a vengeful figment of her boss' imagination.

Saito's dying slowly. Arthur's distracting projections and setting explosives another level up. Yusuf's playing a life-or-death game of Grand Theft Auto at the top. And here she is, following Cobb into _limbo_ , thinking loudly about how badly she'd like to put his _fucking lights out_.

\---

In spite of all of this, they _do it_.

They wake up. They land. She watches, impressed in spite of herself, as Cobb rouses from sleep while the flight attendant passes out immigration forms. She hears Arthur mutter, _'_ _Asshole,'_  even as he's smiling at Cobb. Yusuf is already in the bathroom. Saito wakes as well. She's so relieved at this all being over she doesn't even stop to ream Cobb out for keeping all those impossibly important details from them.

\---

Ariadne's urge at LAX is to keep ignoring Yusuf, out of both resentment, and an assumption it'd be unprofessional to reach out to him here.

But once she sees Fischer's left and gotten into his car, and once she sees Arthur making his way "inconspicuously" toward Eames who has been waiting for him, she lets herself off the hook, and wanders outside to where Yusuf's in line for a cab. She doesn't have the strength to let him leave. Not without saying goodbye. Not without saying _something_.

He looks like he's ready for a verbal beating at the very sight of her, and she hears a quiet but genuine _'_ _What have I done,'_ and that's enough to get her smiling.

"Okay," she says, "that's a tad dramatic." He bites his lower lip even as he grins in his embarrassment. "Yeah, I can still hear you."

He runs through a series of delightful expletives in his head before answering out loud. "Well, enjoy it while it lasts!"

"I won't know when it's out of my system, though," she realizes suddenly. "Not without you guys around."

Yusuf pulls his phone out, and she hears him mutter something about _'_ _finally an excuse... her number_.' "Well, let's try an experiment, shall we?"

Before he can ask for her number, she's reciting it to him. He plugs it into his phone. "Now what?" she asks.

"Go back inside. Somewhere you can't see me."

So she does. She goes inside and into the ladies' room and her phone rings. She answers it. "Hello?"

"Hello," he says tentatively.

"Heard  _that_ ," she kids.

" _Ha-ha_ ," he allows. "Alright, let's see..." Then there's silence on the other end, until... _'E_ _r war ein Punker, und er lebte en der gro-'_

"NO," she says peremptorily, hanging up and making her way swiftly back outside to where Yusuf is already laughing.

"Alright, so your telepathic tendencies persist even over the telephone."  _'_ _Call me, just call me,'_ she hears underneath it. "So, why don't you call me in a week?"

She cocks a little grin. "I thought you said four-or-five days," she reminds him, half kidding, and half thinking that a week is far too long to wait to talk to Yusuf again.

He may actually blush at that, but the color in his cheeks is harder to read than his mind. "Alright, call me in four-or-five days."

And before she can get any more out of him, he's finally at the front of the cab line, and one is pulling up. "Pleasure flying with you, Ari," he offers before he closes the door.

Ariadne just waves, because she's annoying at a loss for what to say.

She heads to the back of the cab line, where she's now just two people behind Arthur and Eames. They aren't speaking, but she does get a glimpse of Arthur swatting Eames' hand off his ass.

 _'Oh_ , _sure, darling,'_ she hears Eames muttering,  _'_ _pretend all you want... Give it two hours, you know I'll be so deep in-'_

Ariadne violently shakes her head from side to side as if Eames' thoughts will simply fall out, but of course, it doesn't work, so she turns to her only other option.

 _'SOOOOOOOOOOME-BODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL ME,'_ she belts out in her head, quickly and loud as she can.

\---

Ariadne agreed to call Yusuf in four-or-five days.

She holds out for two.

She hasn't left Los Angeles, going against her better instincts again, but she just doesn't want to leave yet. Going back to Paris seems too final now. And maybe there's a teeny-tiny part of her that is hoping she'll have an opportunity to go somewhere else first, to meet him. Now that she's not worried about Cobb, and Fischer, and having her brains turned to scrambled egg, the flutterings she was feeling for Yusuf are at the forefront of her mind constantly.

She calls him from her hotel room. She doesn't know where he is, and she doesn't want to call him at a ungodly hour, so she decides to call him at 3 o'clock in the morning, Los Angeles time, figuring it's her best bet.

Or maybe she just can't sleep, and she's got "All Star" stuck in her head, despite the fact that she hasn't had to use it defensively for two whole days now.

When he picks up, the other end of the line is mostly quiet, save for his hushed murmur of  _'_ _Oh, shut up, Yusuf_. _'_ She giggles, and she knows her face reddens, and she's happy to hear him. "Hello?" he answers quickly.

"Hi," she says, wondering what else there is to say suddenly. "Did I wake you?"

He grumbles a laugh, humming softly to himself now, sleepily, and (she thinks) not out loud. It's enough to make her drowsy in its own right. She glances at the pillow next to her, and thinks it would be nice to fall asleep next to Yusuf, with him humming softly to himself. "Well, it's 3 o'clock in the morning, so yes," he answers, barely louder than the humming inside his head.

"You're still in the States?" she asks.

"Mm-hmm," Yusuf confirms. "I'm still in Los Angeles." Ariadne's heart flutters stupidly at this information, and she's suddenly very relieved her new "powers" don't work both ways.

"So am I," she tells him, trying not to sound so fucking breathless; this wasn't supposed to be  _this_ kind of phone call.

 _'You've_ _got to be kidding me,'_  Yusuf mutters helplessly. "I mean," he says aloud. _'_ _She can't-'_ "Where-" _'-_ _so close, it isn't fair-'_ "Where are you staying?" he forces out quickly, desperately.

It's not as fun hearing him now. It feels too invasive, and she wishes she could turn it off if she wanted to.

"The Hilton," she answers too quickly, to try and drown out his thoughts. "I'm sorry, Yusuf; I shouldn't have called."

 _'No, please don't be_ _,'_  he nearly pleads. "No, I'm glad you did," he confesses out loud. "Maybe we should hang up, though."

She nods, as if he can see. "Bye, Yusuf."

 _'Don't-'_  "Goodnight, Ari."

She feels like mold for having put him through it, even if his thoughts made her ache to be near him.

Her phone vibrates three minutes later.  _Well, I'm well and truly awake now_ , the text reads.

Ariadne's guilt subsides and she's frustratingly warm, and she buries her face in her free hand, red again.  _I'm the worst_ , she replies. Once she's sent it she feels a little stupid because she knows she's fishing for him to tell her she isn't, to say something nice and reassuring, the kind of things he says in his head.

She waits for a response for about five minutes, and it feels like forever. She's gnawing on her pinky nail by the time she finally reads,  _Bet you wish you could hear what I was thinking now_.

She twists up her mouth at that.  _It turns out I kind of always want to know what you're thinking_.

_Like it inside my head, do you?_

Ariadne laughs.  _Preferable to some of the others I've been inside._

_What has the quiet been like?_

_Somewhere in between peaceful and boring. I've had the TV on a lot._

_Not so bad, then._

_No, not so bad. When are you leaving LA?_ She asks, even though she's afraid of the answer.

She has to wait another couple minutes for his response. She's just starting to worry that he's fallen back asleep when her phone buzzes.  _Haven't booked a ticket anywhere else yet._

Ariadne smiles.  _Me neither_ , she lies. She feels a little guilty about it, she supposes. She's supposed to be flying back out to Paris in two days, but now, knowing that Yusuf is so close, she doesn't think she wants to.

They text for another couple hours until she has to give in to sleep. Now that she's done with the PASIV, she loves to fight sleep. She never could fight it when the Somnacin started pumping, but now that she can resist it, she wrestles against sleep nightly. Once they've said goodnight, she falls asleep with her phone still in her hand, the sky outside brightening.

Ariadne sleeps for fifteen straight hours.

\---

She should really go back to Paris. But, what's another few days?

They text for most of their waking hours. Sometimes it's about music. For instance, it turns out that in spite of Yusuf's multilingual devotion to Falco, he also can't get enough of Etta James. Or Khachaturian. Or the Rolling Stones. And those are just the ones they have in common.

Sometimes it's about Dreamshare, because even if Ariadne did help to achieve inception less than a week ago, she doesn't know much about the industry itself. He regales her with some of his more exciting tales, and she can picture the smug look on his face at the fact she can't tell how embellished they are (as if she needs to be able to read his mind to know that).

Sometimes it's about Cobb, and they theorize in turn what effect limbo must have had on his mind, or why she hadn't been able to hear him.

Sometimes it's just about the ways baristas misspelled both their names on cups of coffee that day.

It's been six days since Ariadne was hooked up to the PASIV when she finally calls him.

When she does, there's silence on the other end. It makes her heart race. "Yusuf?" she finally asks, after too many staggering moments.

"I'm here," he answers, relieved. She feels like she can hear him smiling. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, or maybe she does notice things after all. "Looks like you're cured," he says.

 _Sweet relief_. She takes a huge breath and exhales dramatically. "Well,  _that_ was a hell of a ride."

"Are you busy, Ari?" he asks, sounding rather determined.

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"Not at all," she replies.

"Want to see a movie?"

Her hands tingle. "Right now?"

"Sure," he answers.

She's chewing up the inside of her cheek to contain her excitement. "Alright. What do you want to see?"

"Just meet me at the theater. I'll text you the one. We'll figure it out when we get there."

"Okay," she agrees, giving in to the smile that feels like it's taking up her whole face.

\---

An hour and a half later, she's getting out of a cab across the street from the movie theater. He's already there, waiting for her, smiling.

She feels like she walks toward him in slow motion. The silence that last week would have been cluttered with Yusuf's clumsy muttering or humming is deafening. She misses it, hearing him think. She looks at his stupid head, full of thoughts she can't hear anymore. She wants back in.

Even if she has to do it the old-fashioned way.

She doesn't know what she's going to say to him even as she's opening her mouth, now that she's finally standing in front of him.

But it doesn't matter, because he cuts her off at that alone. "I had a lot of grand plans about how cool I was going to play this, now that you can't hear what I'm thinking anymore," he starts, with a look on his face like he's trying to talk himself out of something. Or maybe into something. "But, after nearly a week of wishing I could see you..."

And he kisses her, catching her off guard, but who  _cares_ because it's all she wants at the moment.

Her face is cradled gently but purposefully in his fingers. She can feel him smiling against her mouth. She tries to will her own smile away even a bit, so she can manage to kiss him back.

It could last five seconds or fifty. She's nearly lost in it when it ends as abruptly as it began.

"So anyway," Yusuf says, and tries to shrug coolly, taking her hand and heading toward the theater's doors. "What shall we see?" he asks, lacing their fingers together, examining the movie times above the box office. " _Toy Story 3's_ starting soon."

"But it's supposed to be so _sad_ , though!" Ariadne laments. "Or do you just  _want_ to see me cry like a baby?"

Yusuf laughs. "Actually, I think it'd put us well on our way to leveling the playing field in terms of revealing ourselves involuntarily," he says to her as they reach the front of the line. The girl in the ticket booth gives him a strange look upon overhearing the end of their conversation. He just grins at her and says, "Two for  _Toy Story 3_ , please."


End file.
